


Star Eyed, Cross Eyed

by Jayssienda



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: After "Weynon Priory" (duh), Before "The Path of Dawn", Cloud Ruler Temple, Crushes, F/M, Lyre has so much pride it's strange anymore, Lyre using the "F Word", Multi, Pining, Swearing, mentions of Nerevarine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 09:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayssienda/pseuds/Jayssienda
Summary: Six years avoiding the crazy people in your hole in the ground can form a dent on a child's emotional capabilities.Lyre finds this out the hard way when she can only recognize the fluttering in her chest after remembering an old friend who, coincidentally, also saved the world what feels like oh-so-long ago.





	Star Eyed, Cross Eyed

  Lyre stands, back to the wooden walls, arms crossed at her chest and staring, more likely considered glaring, at the numerous stars in the night sky. She spies constellation after constellation, weaving together into lively beings from the plane of Aetherius.

  The woman scoffs upon seeing her least favorite; The Thief. Coincidentally, that’s also the sign Lyre had been born under on a dusty, broken down day in Ald-Ruhn, as the first of four - _four!_ \- total children. Now, there’s no use in saying the sign has no merit in her own life; She’s quick with both wits and speed, and nearly undetectable once in shadow. And killing? Well, after years of it before, it’s the farthest thing from foreign to her now.

  Lyre Draig is, without a doubt, a perfect fit with her own sign.

  But now? The world seems like it conspires against her and the burning fire of her ancestors runs hotter than Oblivion in her veins. It was a damned _plot_ against her own thought process, her body falling into some sort of stupor whenever she was near Martin.

   _Martin Septim_ , the man she found through fire and ash inside of a temple what feels like oh-so-long ago. Gods, it’s like she’s fallen in love with the man or something.

  Lyre pauses, eyes widening and blinking multiple times in rapid succesion. _By the three…_

  An arm passes over her shoulders and Lyre doesn’t even flinch anymore, so extraordinarily used to the nearly overwhelming nature of the amassed Blades crawling through the woodwork that this is a normality. Soft linen tickles at the nape of the dunmer’s exposed neck, and she stiffens the slightest bit at the perhaps foreign sensation of robes on bare skin. Comparatively, Lyre seems almost _purple_ when placed next to the true gray of Martin’s robes, brushing along her exposed shoulders like it’s nothing.

  It’s not fucking nothing. If it was nothing, Lyre would be able to sit back and laugh at him finding her in such a strange place, face puckered into a grimace and glaring at he stars as though they had stolen her first born from directly under her nose. Instead, she’s stiffened and has her heart beating faster than that of the black horses for which the _Black Horse Courier_ is named. It’s nothing but a fight with her own body as heat rises higher and higher into her face, trying desperately to warm the pointed tips of ears and nose. Faster even than her own horse, damn that steed.

   _This_ was why she was outside so often anymore; Lyre had every excuse imaginable when standing in a sleeveless tunic and light trousers on the top of a gods damned _mountain_. Red face? Must have spent too much time here, I’ll head in. Stiffness? I’m a bit cold and can’t feel most of my fingers, with other parts of my body following suite. Sudden tenseness? A snowflake hit the back of my neck, whoops.

  Everything was just a quiet little lie as she pushes away all of these feelings, so very much the same as six years ago when Miralyn started blabbing after the sujamma started to sink in further and further, all of her secrets spilling.

   _“I think…” she had slurred a little bit and blinked sluggishly, a half-burp stuck in her throat, “I think I’m in love with Julan. Ish that baaaad, Lyre?”_

  Of course, having been secluded in her own little underground hell filled with other fucking psychos out for flesh at almost from the times she was twelve to eighteen had removed many of her developing social skills and killing all of her charisma in one foul swoop. Therefore, asking her for advice on _emotions_ was literally the worst thing that could ever happen to the entire Mer race.

   _Sigh_.

  “Lyre,” the voice sends barely suppressible shivers down her spine, breath warm and heady against the shell of a slowly reddening ear, “you’re shaking in your boots, my friend.”

   _My friend_. Lyre scoffs, swiveling only her eyes to peek out at him from under her ever-shorter mop of dark and scruffy hair, “It’s cold out, Martin. It would be more of a phenomenon had I _not_ been shaking while standing here,” she snarks out, her own breath clouding in the air and swirling up and up and _up_. It would be pretty, was the Mer not so preoccupied with the arm around her own shoulders and the tips of calloused fingers just barely brushing along her arm and…

   _Gods_ , she’s almost in a puddle on the cold stone floor. It’s almost like the anguish of setting yourself on fire accidentally, but only the current burn-- the constant. But the moment they part, her chest aches and her eyes water and it’s always about going “home” to him.

  Martin lets out a sound that can only be described by Lyre as _adorable_ in every aspect, his own little laugh as something she fell in love with before she fell in love with it. Almost laughable, just how much her heart beats for this man next to her, staring up at the stars in his own little bits of wonder and amazement. “The world is much quieter this far away,” he mentions offhandedly with his arm back at his side, linens brushing Lyre’s own arm every now and again.

  “I’m heading inside. C’mon, Martin, I’d never hear the end of it if you ended up sick on my watch.”

  The eye roll she gets in return says more than enough to her, accompanied by the slight smile and footsteps crunching through the light layers of snow as they make their way back inside.

  
  Lyre doesn’t look back, only grabbing her assortment of bags and a corked bottle of wine before making her way through the forces of Blades -- attempting to exchange as few pleasantries about any and anything on Nirn as possible, in the meantime, -- to her own set of quarters and away from all of her unorthodox emotions about a man that was to soon be claimed _Emperor._

**Author's Note:**

> "Drama Queen" Lyre isn't used to feeling emotions other than rage and suspicion, so she's a bit too blunt about everything. That can only get you so far when feels hit a little too hard, though.
> 
> Tamblur (Haha, aren't I quirky?): https://jayssienda.tumblr.com/


End file.
